40 years ago, on January 7, 1979, the Vietnamese People’s Army in
co-ordination with the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, deposed
Pol Pot, putting an end to the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, liberating Cambodia’s
capital city Phnom Penh.

In one of the darkest moments of the Vietnam War, the top American military
commander in Saigon activated a plan in 1968 to move nuclear weapons to South
Vietnam until he was overruled by President Lyndon B. Johnson, according to
recently declassified documents cited in a new history of wartime presidential
decisions.

Bui Tin, a North Vietnamese colonel who had a prominent role in the Vietnam
War’s final moments but later fled the country and became an unlikely critic of
its ruling Communist Party, died on Saturday in France. He was 90.

More than a thousand people in Vietnam marked Friday’s 50th anniversary of
the My Lai massacre, the most notorious episode in modern U.S. military
history, with talk of peace and cooperation instead of hatred.

A grand ceremony is scheduled to be held in Ho Chi Minh City today, January
31, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Mau Than General Offensive and Uprising
in spring 1968; as part of the commemorations, the whole Party, people, and
army are actively organising memorial activities and promoting emulation
movements to celebrate the new Spring and the country’s Doi Moi (Renewal)
process, as well as successfully implement the resolutions adopted at Party
congresses at all levels and the 12th National Party Congress.

EDITOR'S NOTE — Early on the morning of Jan. 31, 1968, as Vietnamese
celebrated the Lunar New Year, or Tet as it is known locally, Communist forces
launched a wave of coordinated surprise attacks across South Vietnam.

By day Nguyen Thi Hoa sold conical hats on the streets of Hue in southern
Vietnam, at night she funnelled secrets to Communist army handlers who were
poised to launch an audacious assault on the city that would reshape the
Vietnam War.

When we think back to the signal events of the antiwar movement in 1967, we
recall the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s powerful April 4 speech denouncing
the war, the thousands of returned registration cards during the “Stop the
Draft” week, and the March on the Pentagon that brought record numbers of
demonstrators to the nation’s capital.

"Various complex trading networks emerged between these communities, some of
which resulted in the movements of materials and manufacturing ideas over quite
long distances," researcher Catherine Frieman said.

While Bao Dai, who died 20 years ago this week, enjoyed the high life in
Hong Kong and elsewhere, he did try to play his part during Vietnam’s most
violent and troubled years amid the two Indochina wars